What's in a Name?
by tremor3258
Summary: Admiral seh'Virinat didn't pick the best time to start fitting out a ship with the Iconian War looming, but making it a ship instead of an assembly of parts is proving troublesome in unexpected ways.
1. Preparation

What's in a Name?

Preparation

By Tremor3258

Author's Note: Set after my prompt for ULC 9 – Old Flame, and "Uneasy Allies", shortly before the Iconian War starts. An'riel is my Fed-aligned Romulan science character. This is assuming about two years from Virinat to the Iconian War

The Elachi reputation one was of ruthlessness, without remorse or sound, the silent predator around the edges of civilization, slowly subsuming entire worlds. This was entirely true. However, it is far easier to be silent in space.

With a crack that thundered across dozens of kilometers of open air, a subspace rift tore open the ever-bright sky of the Solanae sphere. Diamond shaped Elachi ships poured through, aimed at the vast spire structure, surrounded by stardocks, which served as the primary shipyards of Dyson Command.

A tiny fraction of the Sphere's industrial potential, they were more than sufficient to allow the Republic to vault itself back to superpower status, meeting its commitments to the defense of the Rihannsu colonies. If there'd been dilithium spontaneously generating instead of Omega particles in the Sphere, the KDF and Starfleet would have certainly opened additional yards as well. But even with that logistic issue, the yards were large enough to supply the entire Delta Rising operation's maintenance requirements, while still maintaining the Republic fleet and the still-ongoing exploration operations in the Sphere itself, which would take millennia to explore completely.

This incredible treasure trove was the merest fraction of the embattled Sphere's technology and potential, from one of the Iconians' puppets. The Elachi's mission was an obvious opening move to the Milky Way invasion – prevent more secrets of their dread masters' technology falling into the hands of the Alliance, cut the link between the Alpha/Beta and Delta Quadrants, and shatter as many advanced ships and crews as possible before their governments could rally.

The picket ships on the outer line fell back, prepared to deal with a Voth raid, but the pickets would simply be vaporized against a full fleet. They passed energy and torpedo turrets which awoke to hurried bursts of communication. Automated and (Turing test confirmed) non-sapient, they would blankly and robotically give their lives to buy time to organize.

The Elachi's bizarre crescent-wave disruptors began to launch range-attenuated scythes of energy as torpedoes in the Alliance's three favorite flavors began to leave their tubes, the energy- weapon turrets programmed to wait for a better hit chance at closer range, shields flaring slightly to defend against the ionization of plasma torpedoes strung towards the angular enemy ships, along with the sonic booms of photon and quantum torpedoes being launched in thin atmosphere.

That's when the second phase of the operation became apparent. Small spherical probecraft, long a minor irritant in the Sphere, decloaked around the outer turret line, using months of signal intelligence to launch electronic warfare packages into the energy turret software. Some simply exploded under Iconian worms, others were confused into targeting their neighbors, and opened up with a scattering of energy bolts into the turrets still firing at the approaching fleet. Between the fratricide and the Elachi approach, the dockyards' outer defenses fell far faster than expected by Alliance planners.

It did, however, still take and give expert systems and living beings the chance to recover from surprise. The primary defense reserve gathered and swung around to meet the Elachi, a primarily Republic contingent that cloaked into fuzzy invisibility. Running lights flickered on across the shipyard, as ships in stages of construction or repair brought themselves to life. Some, many still-skeletal, living and power modules hung within a framework lacking armor plating headed towards the gateway. Others, showing the scars of their time in the Delta Quadrant, limped to join them.

Others, such as two _Astika_ -class battlecruisers being dissected to evaluate what had been done to them, and, more importantly, where by the Iconians to make the Vaadwaur such a threat had their scuttling charges set. With their structural integrity fields down, they broke easily, pieces being oriented to plummet towards the Sphere's surface hundreds of kilometers below.

The rest though, deemed 'good enough' by the dockyard moved to join the battle. The closest to the attack line, one of the newer destroyers, awoke and slid from its moorings. Its battle cloak smoothly masked against the atmospheric eddies as blast waves propagated from the dying turrets, and the probes showed no reaction until it reached close range and dropped the cloak.

Its navigational deflectors shone as it used those very powerful projectors, combined with the fine control of the long-range sensors mounted behind, to tell physics to shut up and get in line. With a scream that would resonate in bone, the fabric of space fell into subspace, an aberration in the universe. The probes, caught in its midst, found their power levels falling rapidly as bright blue and white energy fire sprayed from the destroyer.

The Elachi, without comment, continued their work to break the rest of the static defenses. The probes did not back away, though they began to scatter to try and escape into space with more expected physical laws. From their featureless surfaces, antiproton beams lanced out, and the destroyer's shields began to flare as it struggled to dissipate the energy.

With a hum, the proton cannons emblematic of the class deployed themselves, increasing the weight of firepower while the probes were still crippled. As the secondary deflector was forced to seal itself against backscatter, the subspace and energy fields that gave the ship its wings reconfigured, maneuverability improving as the hole punched through for the secondary deflector's signals sealed itself.

Normal enough for the _Dyson_ series, but this one had not yet undergone shakedown. Its shield grid, equipped with additional optimizations over the base design, had small spots where they heterodyned unexpectedly with the EM fields of the impulse engines, weakening coverage. Installation of the ship's energy-disbursement system into banks of heavy neturonium plating was not yet finished, and software from the tactical systems had not been optimized. The probes antiproton beams quested out and found such a weak spot, slicing through the shielding and into the hull, unmitigated by defensive plating or reinforcements to structural integrity.

A tremendous thunderbolt, followed by lighting followed as the ship scattered and lurched, one of the major plasma conduits to its nacelles blown in a haze of gamma radiation. Lights flickered across the hull as EPS grounded itself. The nacelle went dark as the ship swung around, listing. The Tyken's Rift collapsed back into normalcy as the ship's power died. Escape pods began to separate from the ship, but there was little time remaining.

The follow-up antiproton barrage found scant resistance as the ship collapsed inward, its singularity containment failing as the black hole at its heart raced out of control. The Elachi, their first objective completed, gliding whisper-quiet to join the probes as the attack on the dockyard continued, detaching a single frigate to collect the lifepods for a grim fate.

Admiral An'riel tel'Riessei seh'Virnat leaned back in her chair as the simulation finished, still taking notes, and paying no attention to the stunned silence around her as, at the central holoviewer, the bridge crew watched their last few moments of life play out. She needed to evaluate her own performance before commenting – the Solanae 'radial' design was significantly different than the usual bridge layout on warbirds. She was hoping it would reveal some insight into the species, so had declined when the engineers had offered to swap the bridge modules.

Useful it may prove, but right now she really was missing having armrests. She wasn't sure what that said about Solanae physiology, but it was annoying to hers. The heavily holographic controls did show some real advantages once you got used to them, and she was able to finish collating her notes on bridgecrew reactions to timestamps during the short combat simulation quickly.

The bridge crew was silent, even Jalel, who while polite and a good security officer, was Federation and (from scuttlebutt she'd gathered) talkative by Trill standards. She stood up, the chair retracting as she did so to survey the room. Even crew had been with her since Virinat were rigid at their seats, paying scrupulous attention to what few readouts were active.

"That was well done, my children," An'riel said standing. "We have successfully fixed the cloak interaction issues that were previously an issue, and holographic simulations did not show the spot overloads of last time. Congratulations are in order to our engineering staff." The Ulhans that were subbing the engineering posts smiled cautiously.

She walked forward and stood by the holographic viewscreen, resting a hand on the console, and took a moment to observe the singularity that marked their passing. After a beat, she tapped a control, switching it back to its default Master Systems Display readout. Large sections still showed dark, but she smiled broadly and tapped a control zooming in on the nacelles, and then gestured into the pylon area which had been ripped open in their recent holographic test.

"In spite of the issues during the mission, I have excellent news – the plasma conduits have completed the dockyard testing cycle and our warp coils reached maximum load under external power. Our warp nacelles have been approved by the dockmaster, and that was the last major system, besides the singularity core installation," she said, with a nod to Tovan. He'd been running tactical and the stream of dockyard reports during simulation, and he deserved every credit she could give.

She turned and looked around, still playing it up a bit. Honestly, they all deserved credit for how hard they had been working. She had the honor of captaining many ships in the rapidly-expanding Republic Navy, but this was the first one they were receiving direct from the dockyard, instead of second-hand courtesy of the Imperial Navy. And a shakedown cruise after a refit, An'riel had found, was much easier than newly assembled. Even with half again their own compliment from the dockyard assisting, they were being worked to the bone.

An'riel began pacing around the console, and pitched her voice louder, "I know we have not had as much time as we should, but we all know why time is running out. You have honored the Republic, and myself, more than we can ever repay over the last two years. We are alive, and our colonies free, thanks to your tremendous efforts, and the crews like yourselves." She stopped, and smiled, "Perhaps not quite as capable as yourselves, but close." There were a few obligatory chuckles.

"Every moment we have to act is thanks to sheer hubris on the part of the demons of air and darkness. We are Rihannsu, we are Reman, and we will thank them for showing us their weaknesses with all our people's ferocity!" She stopped, adjusting the controls, showing the areas still inactive within the hull, "We know the legacy of our people. We know the crimes we have committed and absolved under the Republic, and the crimes the demons led our people to. We will not let it happen again. We will not be slaved, and the blade we are tempering here will be the one driven into their black hearts!" she finished, shouting, sweating slightly from the exertion.

She wasn't sure how the majority of crews would respond. Her friends, her children in common parlance as her crew members, did not break into song or cheers perhaps how Klingon crews, or the shouts of a Terran-majority crew. They stood however, with the classic salute of the grand days of the Senate, long enough that treachery had risen to glory, hand on chest. She stood still and returned, turning to face each corner of the room.

"We will try again in several hours," she said, speaking conversationally again. "Jalel, you have the bridge for now – we are doing well on the schedule, but I have a few things to discuss. Keep the emphasis on mobility and defense systems for bringing on line. Tovan, meet me at my office in ten minutes please." Her old friend and exec nodded, and turned to his console. They were battling paperwork as much as mechanical faults.

Jalel rose from his substation to take the command chair. An'riel stood by it, speaking quietly. "Well done running the opposition, and I apologize for not mentioning your race as well in that." It had been a bit of a modification from one of the old epics calling for unity after the landing on ch'Rihan and the tragic civil wars that had followed, but An'riel always tried to steal from the best.

"I understand, sir. That's why most of my captains just use 'human' as a shorthand." An'riel rolled her eyes. Terrans. Jalel waved his hand to refocus his superior, over the hazy tactical map he'd been using to run the Elachi strike. "It didn't take much to manage, it was one of the big fleet-grade simulations they've been running here at Dyson Command," the Trill explained. Apparently, Jalel followed the same philosophy on what to steal.

"Regardless," An'riel said, "My compliments to Captain Rel and the _Harriman_ for their data feed again." The two exchanged taut smiles. This was the fourth day of their 'worst-case' tactical simulations, with the Iconians having perfect knowledge of their ship's weaknesses and how to strike at the Alliance's data networks. A simulation as only as good as its data, however, and so Captain Rel had generously agreed to have the sensor drones on his Scryer-class practice by performing an in-depth tactical analysis of their little instance of a _Caprimul_.

"I'll send that on," Jalel promised, "He's grateful for the opportunity to fine-tune his sensors. Deep-scans of a Republic ship, even in drydock, are worth bragging rights back on Andor."

An'riel pulled up a file from the ship's databanks, "If he starts getting too boastful about getting one over… send this file over on your next message." Jalel grinned. An'riel wouldn't send over anything too harmful, but in this case cross-culturally, honor was honor. "In the meantime, Fabricator 14 claims to be done with the modifications to core containment. Alert Veril and D'vex, so they can start closing up engineering. Then maybe we can fix these shield grid issues."

An'riel left the bridge after a few more rounds of instruction on the minutia of a ship in spacedock. She had only herself to blame, but being in the tan, more traditional tones of the barracks depth was relieving. The Solanae sections, with their dark alloys and unusual color scheme… she kept expecting something to ambush her.

There was the other thing, which was small and probably old-fashioned, that kept the ship from feeling like a home. She still hadn't come up with a name for the ship. It wasn't on any active honor lists yet, so it wasn't a concern for Admiral Kererek, but it was becoming noticeable to the crew. Elements knew the ship was having different teething problems every few hours, so it clearly didn't really know herself either yet.

She passed crew after crew inspecting auxiliary systems, or finishing installing primaries. The spaceframe had been under construction for over a year, but at a slow pace. She'd enjoyed the brief stint in the _Dyson_ prototype, and the idea of an upgrade to a ship with similar sensors, more flexibility, and the ability to cloak next to the surface of the sun was intriguing. So she'd asked the Fleet if it was possible to get assigned to one of the 'destroyers'.

Current fleet nomenclature listed destroyers as support ships for large fleet formations, able to aid the big battlecruisers by heavy point defense, and turning the tide for escort squadrons by rapidly collapsing their typically-weak shields. The _Dysons_ had gotten slapped with 'science destroyer' as a result of their flexibility, cramming in advanced sensor arrays and heavy armament into the same hull, though not at the same time unless you wanted to burn out both systems at once.

The downside to highly flexible systems, good maneuverability, heavy forward firepower, and sturdy hulls, besides being intensive and expensive to build, was that they were designed for _one_ fleet engagement, feeding off the stores of larger ships, and then limping to a support yard instead of being repaired in the field. The Solanae Sphere's technology made the logistical issues less pressing for the _Dysons_ , but with the risk of being stranded in the Delta Quadrant, fleet had decided they were too short-ranged for An'riel's assignment with Intelligence to look for signs of Iconians in the Delta Quadrant.

Instead, she'd gotten assigned to one of the huge modern, if not cutting-edge Advanced Warbirds, loaded with Tholian gear tuned for spatial distortions to make up for a less-flexible and powerful sensor suite. The blazing tetryon signature it left all over the place also served to 'explain' any remnants left from the _very_ bleeding-edge _Faeht-_ class warbird that was the other half of her assignment. It was about as small as a singularity-driven ship could be and prone to shaking itself apart. But the Republic could hide its maintenance requests in the paperwork for the _Tempestuous Kestrel_ , feeling if even Delta Command didn't know it was there, then certainly their enemies didn't.

Meanwhile, the _R.R.W. To-be-determined_ continued to exist in potentia. Plenty of room existed in the Sphere to just leave it around as a spaceframe with an antigrav generator or two, while its large subsystems were worked on when time allowed. Since they were just hanging around, the larger systems had been easy to upgrade with the latest results of the technology exchanges between the powers.

Which unfortunately meant that the systems hadn't been looked at as parts of a whole system when upgraded, and they weren't quite showing the promised synergetic benefits yet, which was a polite way of saying the systems were almost warring with each other since they'd started being installed.

She reached her office, tapping regretfully the box of mementos from previous commands and adventures that she hadn't even had a chance to sort yet. There were a lot of things waiting to be done, unfortunately. A simple milk run to the colonies in Psi Valorum had managed to end with the Iconians jumping a Sphere into local space so their long-anticipated invasion could begin. That left only the priorities. She shook herself.

She tapped a screen, displaying the careful efforts of installing the singularity core, a sphere wrapped in layers of physical shielding, and surrounded by distinctly Solanae looking pillars, from a feed taken from the dock. Surrounded by tractor beams and antigrav drones, it was being lowered through its own emergency ejection port.

"Computer, prepare additional log entry," she ordered. Her desk beeped at her in anticipation. "Shipmaster's log - all major systems have been installed except the primary core, though all power converters and secondary systems have passed checks. Systems continue to show minor conflicts, though my crew has once again shown they are one of the best of the fleet as optimization continues at a heavy pace. They have once again born up under a heavy burden, which I pray will see relief before the attack all expect occurs."

"Privately – I have grave concerns about the installation of the singularity core. While the Republic Navy is the master of applied gravity systems, the Solanae-derived technology was empowered originally by either Omega particle interactions or conventional dilithium-moderated warp cores. While our EPS systems are very similar, the technology has had to be adapted further to match the system physical _dimensions_ of our engine rooms compared to the changes to adapt to Starfleet or Klingon warp cores, and I expect further problems with the accelerated schedule."

"And, though my crew has come through admirably, the ship requires time for us to become truly comfortable with her and learn what she can do when pushed to her limits. However, I feel more strongly than a year ago that this ship will be required through the flames to come." She finished, feeling a bit more centered, and sat down to confirm her department heads' reports and keep the wheels of bureaucracy turning.

End Part 1


	2. Discussion

What's in a Name – Part 2

Discussion

By tremor3258

Author's note: My Romulan sci An'riel and her exec discuss recent events in Star Trek Online (which from the Republic perspective, mainly means Sela)

The drudgery of this part of her job was not the best, which is why she'd built herself in a break. The door chimed just five minutes in, as she finished signing the engineering reports. Veril had been doing tremendous things with poor parts for years now, but An'riel was inclined not to force her to exert herself when she didn't half to.

"Come in, Tovan," she said after double-checking the security feed. Her exec walked into the room, looking more haggard in the natural lighting. "Pull up a chair – the replicators kicked in on this deck four hours ago, according to the work logs," she ordered. Tovan walked to the replicator, ordering something that, from the smell, had to be a stimulant. He paused before sitting.

"Oh," he said, "I'm glad you got the painting hung up, but when did you?" He sat down and peered at her carefully, "You have been sleeping and not just going to Satra for pills, have you?" There had been, Tovan remembered, more than one period where his friend had done her best to avoid sleep because of the nightmares that had come.

An'riel rolled her eyes. "Tovan, unless I want the whole crew frying their digestive systems out, I cannot risk not setting an example by setting sleep," she chided. She would prefer stims right now, if she'd had any choice. She was still processing what had happened to Gaius, and old nightmares had been lurking at the edges of her dreams.

She centered herself, leaning forward and serious, "And that painting is one of the things I wanted to talk to you about. Because I _didn't_ hang that painting," she said, and reached into her desk, pulling out an isolinear chip. "And I certainly didn't place this behind the frame, in a secure diplomatic pouch with some codes I can't actually tell you about." She flipped it over, revealing a seal marked with the Republic Phoenix. "But I did scan it – this was molecularly locked. Any change to its data will have affected the image." She handed the chip to her exec.

"That's possible?" Tovan asked, holding it up to the light.

"Barely, and it will only be retained for a few more hours ," An'riel said grimly. "I could probably track it down where it entered the Sphere with enough time to dig through data logs, but that is not a luxury we have, and probably should not." She stopped, considering, added, "Though someone could have just asked a steward to hang it and leave it in the frame. What is on there is worth the cost. It is all the current allied operation plans, and you need to be familiar with them, but only as far as you for now." Tovan nodded. More than once, they'd found themselves in the situation of the captain and the ship pursuing simultaneous objectives.

"I'll commit them to memory," Tovan promised, "I brought one of my own," he said, holding up a chip, not quite so dramatically marked. "Current efficiency ratings for all systems. Revised tactical plans for fighting the ship – I really wish you'd managed to swing some better guns." The ship had her full weapons compliment, but they were straight from Dyson Command, with barely any tweaks.

An'riel waved that off, "We have used gravimetric torpedoes before. It will be relatively straightforward to upgrade the tubes to supports heavier loads on board later. And that is why we do not have better guns. A weapon bay is much easier to pull out in space and add additional transtators and conduits to improve efficiency. An impulse engine is not, so I would prefer to work on those where we have a dock."

"I know you'd ordered them back when it seemed we'd be locked in battle here in the Sphere for a long time," Tovan said cautiously, "And they were here when we you needed to fill out the requisition, but we could swing by New Romulus, get some plasma beams…"

An'riel nodded, and brought out her tricorder. "Yes, but I do not think our major contribution will be our overall peak firepower in fleet combat, Subcommander," she said. "But, my exec, you are as always correct to question, and haven't asked your real question yet. Why did your beloved superior pick now of all times for a new toy?"

Tovan shifted uncomfortably, but An'riel's voice was level, "This ship is one giant answer to a problem no one considered – how to use something as easily deflectable as protons as a directed energy weapon in today's combat environment. The answer has proven to have surprising effects against shielding that we cannot propagate to the rest of the fleet."

"And we know from their probes that, like the Voth, the Iconians prefer antiproton weaponry. And this ship has some counters to that if we can get all the accelerators linked without leakage, of course," An'riel amended, "And their technology, like ours and the Voth, seems to indicate eventually free-standing deflectors become easier to enhance than integrity fields, and Solanae technology offers some very interesting ways to use charged particles to level that playing field."

Tovan nodded. Part of An'riel's Sphere-tech infatuation had involved getting samples of all the strange proton generation technology that was being reverse-engineered stuffed into her pet project. Some of its tricks were still inherent to the structure, in spite of the technology arms race going on. "I can see where you're going, but it's going to be a long time before we could retune these to hit like they do against Voth ships," he warned.

An'riel tossed her tricorder in the air briefly, "Not yet, but bless Iconian hubris. The data download on the sphere was inherently unreliable, but having one of their ships hover twenty meters away without shields up will be a godsend for the tech teams. And they let us live after fighting their ground troops, so we have data on that."

"We take out the gateways and that will be the element of surprise," Tovan said, irritated, then smacked his hands together. "Elements, we got _this_ close to Taris, again! Three times!"

An'riel held up her hands, "I know," she said, fiercely, "But as certain as I am as my deepest name and my honor… I know we will get another chance. She did _not_ escape payment. Thousands of ships and no one had a tractor beam on standby on a tall ledge? We will meet her again," An'riel promised, her eyes fairly glittering.

"Have you figured out what that Iconian stageshow was about then?" Tovan asked, "It's been keeping me up at nights. They didn't think we would be there, that was for Sela, trying to prove something or point her in some direction"

"It could have been any group there with Sela," An'riel said honestly, "As far as I can figure. I am glad it was us, since we knew how to help poor Gaius," she stopped briefly, gulping, feeling the old gorge. An'riel had been briefly subject to Tal Shiar holoconditioning, a prisoner in her own mind. Republic Intelligence had, thank the Elements, been in position to save her and deliver the cure information to Republic Command, the moment the tide turned in the war against Hakeev. The psychological effects had taken longer to heal, and the scars lingered.

Unfortunately, though being able to detect and reverse holoconditioning had cleared thousands of defectors for being able to serve in the Republic without worry, the Navy's finest intelligence officer was a Liberated Borg, and their neural chemistry was always unique. Poor Gaius had served as Sela's puppet, trapped in his own head, and even his famous paranoia hadn't been able to detect it.

Tovan asked cautiously, "Have you heard? Did he wake up from surgery yet?"

An'riel waved the question away. "I am certain he will return to active duty," she said, "We have managed to cure hundreds of the Tal Shiar's betrayal of everything Rihannsu. Gaius will be another one to be able to serve with no question on his loyalty. Otherwise-" she stopped. "I am certain he will be able to return to active duty. Really, I can see no other end for him."

Tovan nodded. An'riel had once been cockier and more relaxed on duty, eagerly agreeing to the most dangerous of missions. Afterward, she had… eagerly agreed to the most dangerous of missions, but she was always, scrupulously formal. And even though she was one of the few commanders absolutely untainted by the association with the Empire, and D'Tan had poured on rank as a result, but she had never volunteered to take command of a fleet or even a squadron as she would certainly be given if she asked. She'd taken brief tactical command occasionally, but she'd never led multiple ships full-time.

"So what's the other card with all this?" Tovan asked. An'riel looked surprised. "A new ship is nice, and this seems useful, but we'd managed to refit our old ship. The invasion could be happening and we'd be stuck here. Why now?"

An'riel hesitated briefly. "This… even with what we go through, my friend." An'riel stood up, pacing, not looking at Tovan for the moment. "Even with that… this sounds paranoid."

"Admiral," he said insistently, professionally.

"Fine," she said after another moment, and returned to her desk. "I did not think of it at the time – we were due a break after that mess at Kobali Prime nearly restarted the war against the Vaadwaur, but… our timing was very pat."

Confusion briefly fluttered on Tovan's face, "You mean how we just happened to be in position to catch a distress signal off an ion storm?"

"That just happened to come from Sela's ship, while we just happened to be some of the very few people who knew the location of the Nopada gate," An'riel confirmed. "It could be coincidence, but I rather hope not. I owe thanks and honor to whomever let me see Sela so reduced." Tovan nodded agreement after a moment's thought.

"And rescuing poor Gaius was more than worth having to listen to her pretensions," An'riel said, "But more importantly, assuming that the gateways are indeed instantaneous travel, Starfleet's MIDAS array had managed to pick up the gravimetric shift of the Herald Sphere right after it jumped." She tapped up a screen, then with a frown cleared the open screen, but not before Tovan read it.

"Indo-European mythology of Terra?" he asked, "Were you very, very bored?"

"I thought I had closed that," An'riel said, "I had a few minutes of downtime, and I try to use Earth names for the ships since we are still a liaison ship with Starfleet."

"You _still_ haven't found a name?" Tovan said, "I thought you were just waiting to reveal it dramatically. Elements, An'riel, I know your religious about these things, but even a new ship is a ship."

"I have read some papers," An'riel said defensively, "After we saw those android officers at Spacedock. With the downright ease of photonics, which are programs but built to interface with humanity on our level, becoming self-aware, it is theorized that, with the vastly greater power of subspace-driven computer core, they simply live too fast and too complicated to be able to communicate with us."

"Or they're not there. Seriously, you like naming warbirds properly after predator species. Earth's got a million legends, you'll never stop having to explain to the rest of the fleet." Tovan asked.

"It is a hybrid from a race of monsters that's destined to fight demons," An'riel said tautly, "You do not simply call it after something that hunts vermin. And with the Republic crest, 'Phoenix' seemed too obvious, and… why are you distracting me?"

"You looked like you needed it," Tovan said simply.

"All right, but this _is_ serious," An'riel said, smiling slight. A little of the tension was gone from her muscles. "Spheres are _dark_. They are hard to find, but they had orders cut to us in minutes with the exact location down to a warp-out point to join the fleet. That is technically possible, but unlikely."

Tovan nodded, "Okay, so you think someone is 'cheating' a little? Making it easier?"

"Just a little," An'riel answered, "But within the bounds of plausibility. That chip includes some background information gathered by Alliance agents, but the timestamps on some of that data – I would have only bothered to gather some instances if I had known the Iconians were not just legends, but were returning." She stopped briefly, daunted, "And speaking of legends, there is a discussion with… something very old on there, that Starfleet is one hundred percent certain confirms the Iconians cannot time travel."

Tovan spun the chip in his hands, "So why not just go back and warn the High Council?" He asked, "There's dozens of minor time travel instances across the powers, and from what I've heard, the defenses around Q'onos are still pretty shattered."

"It takes a strong Klingon government to not go on the attack," An'riel agreed, "But giving forewarning to a surprise attack would be nearly impossible to conceal our foreknowledge. 'Cheating' gives us plausible deniability."

"But there is the strong chance it may not remain so, and an active temporal intervention may be authorized," An'riel said glumly, "We have been chosen for such in the past. The act of time travel is dangerous. The consequences are worse. If the only hope for the Republic lies in the past, I wish us to have a vessel well suited to dangerous environments. If our fates are to be changed by a single ship, I will do everything I can to _be that ship_ , so I can do what I can that everything we have sacrificed is not rendered meaningless," she vowed.

"So why then have you been blowing us up, the last few days?" Tovan asked, "I know it's helping spot the problems, but it's a brand new ship, the crew's still feeling it out, and morale's starting to sag."

An'riel leaned back, folding inward a bit. "I wish I could," she said honestly, "Proper shakedown and then drilling out of the manual. This is the best I could think of, though. I do not know how much time we have, and these have been simulations from Intelligence based on 'worst case'."

"So you're setting it up so actual combat will be easier on the crew?" Tovan said with some disbelief, "That's… very Imperial thinking, running a bluff on them."

"I am very low on good cards to play, Tovan," An'riel said, "Elements know, we fight in shadows enough normally, but everything we know is based on conjecture and stolen luck. If I can make it hard enough that even through despair, the real enemy is easier," she shrugged, "I am sorry Tovan. This was the best I can do."

They sat in silence for a moment, then the ship suddenly lurched. The two grabbed armrests with the east of practice, and turned to the status display. The core was inside the ship, and the countergravs and tractors of the dock had suddenly had to take the additional mass. Tovan tapped the chip on the desk, taking the opportunity. "Well," he said brightly, "I'll go start on this. Maybe we'll see somewhere we can stick the knife in," he said. "Maybe with the ship's heart in place, it'll complain less." 

An'riel thought for a second. "We can only hope," she said, "Veril thought some of the field emitters were going to resonate with the structural integrity fields. Most of the technology we can build, not understand." She ran her hand through her hair, distracted.

"An'riel," Tovan said gently. The captain looked over. "Go to bed. Please. You know everything we can, and you're just turning and twisting around. Remember, when you wake up," he held up the chip, "You won't be the only one who knows how bad it is."

She opened her mouth to protest, but closed it after a moment. "You are right," she said. "I wish I could sympathize with them, but I know how I would think it would look in a CO."

"The curse of Duty, Captain," Tovan said, almost disturbingly cheerfully, and left her office. An'riel did after a moment as well, considering. At least she could work on the other problem.

An'riel found she was making no progress on the other problem. Mythology on Earth, she concluded, was a maze of mirrors of similar but not quite identical meanings and stories. It was like a Senate debate writ large and then magnified by a thousand. It was amazing what a non-constructed culture could do for sheer output of literature. She once again admired the Federation's ability to get them all pointed generally in the same direction, something the Republic would have to emulate if it was to thrive.

She had, nonetheless, managed to grab six hours of sleep after staring briefly at random mythological fowl for thirty minutes. Mainly thanks to a mild sedative. She was now awake – Vulcanoids simply didn't need much sleep, legacy of their heritage of having to fight their ancient homeworld, and was mulling the Name Problem over again to try and solve at least one problem.

"You have your heart, you are alien but forged into the shape of Rihannsu," she said aloud. The computer beeped back at her. "How about you give it a try? Computer, list of random mythological birds – random sort, please." She peered at the top of the list. "I do not know what that means. Computer, please pull files on –"

"Hiven to Admiral An'riel – emergency alert from Dyson Command," reported the heavy set science officer over the intercom. "Message was to be delivered immediately: War Plan RADIANT engaged."

An'riel cursed, briefly but deeply, and reached for her uniform. "Give me all department heads," she ordered, waiting briefly for the channels. "Attention: Department heads meeting in one hour at bridge-level conference center. Bring complete ship status and estimates required for emergency departure. We leave dock in six hours maximum barring catastrophic failure."

She toggled all hands before questions can start, "Attention, all crew and dock workers. This is the shipmaster speaking. Prepare your quarters for departure under battle conditions. Section leaders will give full briefing in two hours. You have all exceeded my expectations, allowing us to reach the true crucible unbroken." She paused, swallowing, "Republic Command has issued war warning. The Iconian invasion is expected within the next forty-eight standard hours."

End Part 2


	3. Patrol

What's in a Name?

Part 3

Patrol

By Tremor3258

A/N: And finally out of space dock.

The conference room aboard the science destroyer was small, but decorated in Solanae style, with cool metal colors and a lower temperature to help ease volatile Rihannsu and Reman temperaments. It wasn't proving particularly helpful today.

"Admiral, have you lost your mind?" Veril had fairly exploded after entering the room. "This ship's about as ready to fight as a Senator after a free banquet!" She threw two PADDs on the table with a loud clatter, presumably with the same status report hovering over the conference table's holoemitter.

An'riel replied mildly, "I would prefer more time to drill the crew to the new ship as well, but occasionally I am given orders instead of objectives. I am well aware of the current state of our power systems. This ship will, however, be out of dock in five hours if has to limp to New Romulus on impulse."

An'riel flipped the map over to an image of the Tau Dewa sector, "I have received an intelligence briefing with our current analysis of the Iconian threat. The gateways give them a tremendous strategic advantage, obviously, as there are no lines to defend, and they can hit anywhere." She looked around, "What they do not know is that we can strike them back, we believe. But that will be a counterstrike. We must lure them into attacking our strongpoints or risk defeat in detail."

She gestured at Tovan, who continued, "Our repeated explosions have been part of a larger squadron-level simulation of a dockyard attack. As we've seen, a first-strike with Iconian technology will be devastating to the Republic and the Alliance. However, they are relying on information from the automated probes scattered through the Sphere. The last year of efforts in the Sphere means we believe we have a way of localizing them despite their cloaks."

"And as we have seen in our time in the Sphere," An'riel said, taking back over, "The probes themselves are relatively easy to deal with, very lightly shielded. This ship is known by them to be incomplete. If we strike at them, it will throw their estimates of our readiness off, and the Alliance will use the holes in coverage to move fleet elements to unexpected positions."

An'riel stood up, tapping the holoemitter back to the system display, "I understand the… spectacular results of our previous battle simulations, but I also understand the singularity core's gravity emitters seem to have fixed some of our shield grid issues?"

Veril blinked, "That's a bit of an oversimplification, but yes, our tactical allocations were expecting reinforcement that wasn't present. The subspace emitters in those weird Solanae pylons seem to be patching some of the frequency windows, and so we've been able to divert reinforcement to shore up the rest. The simulations couldn't account for it until we got the systems working in. It's not perfect, of course, but they won't be obvious."

An'riel nodded. The nature of an imperfect universe meant any defense system would have some sort of flaw to exploit. And Veril's experience was practical, so she looked past the extra subspace tricks of Solanae tech to the fact that the Alliance could duplicate it, not explain all its facets.

"The armor system and hull plating seem to be responding well, most of those are pretty standard so we haven't had to do much retraining from the old systems," Veril continued, "And the ship's warp dynamics are pretty standard, so I'm not worried there. We're going to see some quick fixes once we leave dock, of course," Everyone nodded at this, "So if you can give me a month we should see engineering back at _my_ standard."

"I promise I will do everything I can to keep us alive until we finish the shakedown," An'riel said seriously, "I am willing to accept _fleet_ standard for just the moment. You want to leave dock before firing up the core?"

Veril nodded, "Better safe than sorry – I know the ejection system works, and if we get far enough along the singularity's formed, then the radiation shielding should keep the dockworkers safe."

An'riel asked, "I know the original tech of this ship was built for a power load we can't match yet, but will we be able to maintain shield integrity without the core, D'vex?" This was directed to Veril's right, at an older, scarred Rihannsu, wearing the mourning tattoos common for the older generation. With his experience, he would be directing New Romulus work crews, but he was from Viriant, rescued out of Elachi space by sheer fortune, and felt he owed the Admiral.

"All our fusion reactors are working normally, so we'll have enough power to get clear. Full energy reserves we could manage a couple hours," D'vex said. He knew as much about older cores as Veril did, but his imprisonment had made him prefer to work with realspace systems. Subspace fields, he claimed, made him itch. "That does remind me, I'd like to see if we can get the dock to charge up our proton accumulators before we leave. Unless you find an Omega particle to throw into the converters, we can't do that without the core."

An'riel twitched a little at that. Post-scarcity economy or no, starships required enormous amounts of energy, and the _R.R.W. Think of Something An'riel_ had the usual problems of Rihannsu designed compare to dilithium armatures for spare energy. And the tech in the ship was ready for a species that built _Spheres_ , expecting far more spare energy than they could provide with mere fusion.

Still, she didn't like to think about her enemy was willing to play even riskier than the Tal Shiar, and that had cost quite a bit for the Republic to break their madness into crazed whispers at the edge of their space.

"I think we can get the dock to do that, it is more a matter of capacitance than voltage," An'riel said, "I will talk to the commandant about diverting some power. Tovan, I know we discussed earlier, but no problems with weapon systems?"

"No, they've passed all checks. As you noted, the bays are pretty modular so they've been pretty straightforward," Tovan reported, not bothering with a PADD. "We've completed pre-firing tests and full diagnostics. The crew's still settling in but they've got the basics in. I guess we'll be getting live-fire tests sooner than I hoped."

Jalel confirmed, "Reran level-five diagnostics before coming in here – no issues after the core installation for weapons or sensors. Transporter inhibitors retested for critical areas, no gaps in coverage zones." The Trill tapped his hands on the table and leaned back, looking eager. Like most Trills in An'riel's (limited) experience who were unjoined, he was a classic overachiever, even by Starfleet's cheerful standards of exuberance.

"Well done," An'riel said, "Satra, I am sorry I have not been able to follow up as well as I liked – how are we doing on stocking the labs?" Even if exploration for its own sake wasn't quite the virtue in the Federation, a science ship could be asked on all sorts of missions, but base plants and cultures for biologicals were harder to get in the sphere.

The doctor frowned, "I did some horse-trading with some backup graviton generators, but one of the _Pathfinders_ gave us half their base seed supply, I can force clone most of the basics of what we'll need from there. The medical lab equipment has passed checks and I've been synthesizing extra hyronalin, since we're expecting radiation damage. The individual lab chiefs haven't reported any new issues but they're still getting sorted. Could we get the cargo bay on C deck? I know it's a floor up, but the turbolift arrangement means it is actually better located to most of the labs."

"See me after the meeting," An'riel said, "Now – what about fleet support?"

"Element-twisting witchery seems set," Satra said, wryly. The petit Rihannsu was mainly a doctor, but An'riel had liked her organizational skills enough to give her the science department… and enough cross-training that she could man a bridge station without any worries "The usual loadout configuration seems set – Hiven, you had the deflector report," she directed.

The broad-shouldered second science officer did bother to check a PADD, "No interaction problems detected. Getting the core in place and the ship sealed up helped let us test the long-range sensors, and we were able to smooth out the wave patterns to fix those anti-ghost artifacts we were expecting. We've tested the projector assemblies across wavelengths at low power, and detected no issues. We're configuring for our preferred combat loadout right now and it's looking about the same as always, so I'm not expecting problems in the live-fire tests."

An'riel nodded. Sensors _were_ her specialty, and the elements that made it up a science ship's deflector assembly lacked in raw power compared to the directed energy capability of a weapon mount, but made up for in vast flexibility as a projection system. Sticking two on seemed a little over-enthusiastic, but it improved the fine-control at close range and let them get a little more warp speed out of her. Two sensors had the possibility of sending each other false returns, but they'd driven a science warbird before and that was one of their few expected glitches.

"Excellent work, all of you," she said warmly, "And just a little more and I think I can promise a day off." She tapped the screen over to local Sphere space. "As I said, we are to engage in a misinformation campaign by targeting Iconian probes hidden within locations of the Sphere. Elements within the Sphere seem to continue producing them, and they generally have been passive until actively probed or fired upon, but Intelligence expects that to change soon."

She tapped another command, highlighting various regions. "While they were considered a minor issue compared to the Voth until this week, the KDF has commissioned some of their Houses to engage in a way to find them passively while masked." There was a brief stir and An'riel smiled, "You know how they get when you tell them there is something they can't see they want to punch. Since we are in thin atmosphere, the problems of stealth are magnified, and we found an infrared band the probes have to dump heat on while their antigravs are active."

Hiven frowned, "Infrared isn't very noisy, Admiral. I back my crews, but even out of cloak we'd have to be nearly on top of them to confirm a target without spending a week passively scanning."

"Agreed," An'riel said, "And fortunately, Dyson Command _has_ spent a week passively scanning." She tapped a command, and the highlights shrunk down into various dots, before a green line with a crude silhouette of their ship crossed the map. "Command asked us to do it since they know our reputation, and are asking for a clean sweep in these five areas, but in a particular order to facilitate their deception routine, ending at the brown dwarf. If this works, we can draw down our forces in the Delta Quadrant and move our most experienced pickets back to Alliance space."

"The route takes us near Voth zones, however, so we will need to be alert for their pickets. Things have been quiet in the Sphere with the Vaadwaur pulling back from some of their conquered territory, but last I heard they have not responded to armistice requests. Jalel, anything on the Federation rumor front?" An'riel asked.

The Trill shrugged, "Starfleet has the Voth down the threat list since we've been able to expand our automated defense lines around more Omega-producing zones after the Undine withdrawal. I asked, but my friend in the Diplomatic Corps said their… under the table contacts haven't reported any change in the Voth's Doctrine."

"Typical, end of the world breathing down our necks," Tovan muttered.

"Unfortunately, yes," An'riel said, "They out-stubborn Sela, and we know how she ended up, but they are a potential threat for now. However, Alliance command requested our engagement rules be wait until fired upon and I agreed. They currently are not in condition to disrupt subspace, and if we leave them, perhaps the Iconians will choke on them."

She checked her PADD for the agenda. "I think we have covered major systems for now. If the core activation goes well, we should be able to give the crew a little R&R on Earth. The ship really is being assembled well, and I do think taking advantage of these features may give us the extra edge in the coming days. Was there anything else?" An'riel asked.

D'Vex looked around, then asked, "Admiral, do we have a ship name yet?"

An'riel stirred uncomfortably, "Command assigned our warbird a hull number when the assembly command was given, but gave me the right of Naming." She hesitated, then stood to pace a little, agitated, "I can feel the ship's Elements coming together, but it has not spoken a Name to me yet. _Phoenix_ feels too easy, somehow. Has the ship spoken to anyone yet?"

There were assorted looks. Satra somewhat disbelieving and Jalel confused. Among the less-atheistic portions of the ship's crew there were assorted mumbles.

"Well," An'riel said after a minute, "We have a little time after it is a proper starship with the singularity core to think of one, traditionally. And it has been more a collection of parts than a true whole this week, so perhaps a little distance from the dock will help." No one still had any suggestions, so, "Departure in five hours for our mission. Continue final checks for singularity generation and final fitting-out. Satra, stay here afterward and we will see if we can fix your cargo issue. Everyone else, dismissed." The group rose and saluted, dispersing quickly. Even if things had improved in the night, there was still much to be done.

Shuttle tug _AF324_ didn't have the courtesy of having a name, but Ensign T'mlin loved his command anyway. The Catian's tail twitched briefly as he flew by today's assignment. He was two months out of the Academy, and here, thirty thousand light years from the Federation in an alien colossus. And with the losses and replacements the Fleet was going through, being so close to the front lines promised swift advancement. Some of his friends were already lieutenants, and two were bridge officers or duty shift officers.

Of course, none of them were _pilots_ , he thought smugly. On a ship, helmsman wasn't usually a high ranking position, as important as it was. Push the buttons when the captain says, except for those few times a career when you got to excel. He was his whole bridge crew and didn't have some stuffy commander or over-promoted captain breathing down his neck, plus he had three kills against the persistent Solanae swarmers already. He figured he kept that sort of thing up on what was technically a tug, and he'd be running a fighter wing somewhere, six months, tops.

Unfortunately, it turned out his instructors had been right: even on the front lines most tasks were pretty routine. This hour was pretty much: tractor ship, pull ship out of spacedock without scratching it, watch ship fly away. True, he didn't go out to Sector 7 very often – it was farther away from the supply depot and mainly designated as overflow, and the ship didn't have a name logged yet. He entertained brief fantasies that it was some secret Intel op he was getting to brush, but figured someone hadn't bothered to update the docs lately.

It was interesting enough to bother reading the attached manifest. It was some Romulan captain of some renown, apparently, which was nice for her, but eh. Sure, he knew plenty of Romulans and his boss was one, but he sort of wished they'd pick a side properly and stop shooting each other. Most of his life, it seemed every year the Empire announced they'd had some new leader, so a commendation for his excellent piloting would probably be filed under 'who cares' even if seh'something was one that'd been farmed out to the Federation.

Still, he thought, at least the Romulans made their warbirds look like proper hunting ships, with unified hulls reminding him of his home planet's work, though more fowl than fish. True, they were long-distance ships, so they stuck the pylons out farther to sustain a warp bubble, but the usual Romulan double-wing helped bring it together and made it look proper instead of spindly like Starfleet ships.

Also, the Romulans were at least a little challenging to launch. With the atmospheric conditions, the tractor was not just a courtesy item, and you had to balance multiple beams because they were generally so big. So there's that.

Also, this was one of the ones with the alien Solanae tech, superconductive alloys kept the ship stitched together with a lot less mass than normal hull space, and so they caught the wind a bit differently.

Humming slightly one of the current pop hits he finished his brief inspection tour and settled in front of one of the dock's open ends, signaling ready. The big ship rocked slightly as the grapples holding it in place disengaged, with a steady stream of shuttles leaving the other end, workers headed to the next assignment. The lights in the cockpit dimmed as the big graviton generators that took up a normal shuttle's cargo bay spun up.

"Ready for departure," came an alto voice, carrying the faint tones of UT processing. Switching to rear view, he saw the running lights come on, with nacelle lights flickering faintly. Shrugging, he triggered the tractor beams. With a the big warbird providing matched bursts of RCS thruster to leave the shipyard, all he had to do was keep it steady, which he did well, naturally.

The ship wobbled a little as it went into the atmosphere, and T'mlin swung through an easy corkscrew, providing a quick verification there were no obvious issues like pieces falling off. He kept pace as the ship drifted on thrusters, probably running double checks. He checked his clock as the ship went off – he had twenty minutes before his next task, so used the open space to run some corkscrews, because hey – be prepared, and the bigger ship with all its reaction mass left him behind.

After about five minutes, his board lit up. Flashes of gamma radiation nearby. His sensors weren't fantastic, but he knew what that meant around here – antiproton weaponry or someone had lost containment. The vector was the Romulan warbird, so probably the EM pulse of its impulse engine had woken up some swarmers.

It happened, had to be embarrassing when you were a sneaky Romulan, though. T'mlin continued to sing to himself as he swung the shuttle around, ignoring a short message to back off. Providing support to pop off a swarmer or two didn't look bad by any means, and the Federation was here to help each other out, right?

He spotted the ship, sharp purple polaron pulses reaching out to bracket the enemy, which was too small to make out, but he would hit weapon range to support the ship before he could link up with the ship, so there was that.

The probe's antiproton pulse picked him off neatly at six kilometers away, giving T'mlin some recognition, if posthumous, as one of the Iconian War's first casualties.

"What in the Void was he thinking?" An'riel fairly snarled. The debris hung in the air where a snapshot had caught the tug pilot, slowly settling towards the Sphere below. She couldn't make out for the life of her why he'd kept coming when they told him to hold off, but it'd been downright senseless. Their status boards showed green, though weapon temperature was climbing as their turrets hunted for the small probes, but well within limits.

"Energy reserves down to ninety-four percent. We're seeing an upswing in targeting efficiency, crews are starting to get into the routine," Tovan reported from weapons.

An'riel dispensed orders, changing the ship's arc slightly to catch one in their side weapons arc. Sensors responded well, and Tovan was able to flash-hit thruster assemblies and overheat manifolds on one of the probes, slowing it immensely as the ship slewed back around. Cannons barked, polaron particles splashing against the shield, rapidly degrading it before a photon torpedo exploded. Its shockwave shattered the small hull.

The destroyer lurched briefly, lights flickering, and anxious eyes glanced at the status monitor, showing yellow over a spot on the port upper pylon. Veril reported over the engineering repeater after a moment, "Lucky hit –micro gamma burst against rear shield, no burn-through, repeat no burn-through. We're engaging auto-decontamination routines. Outer and inner hull structural integrity holding." Something shouted in the background, and Veril signed off with a "Gotta go!"

"Bring us around four-seven degrees," An'riel said, "Finish the other one, open up with secondary arrays." The other probe darted, but the gunnery crews were beginning to get their rhythm, and a cone of polaron bolts bracketed the small automated enemy. Sensor lock showed power dropping as its shields collapsed, the small ship lacking the ability to continue enforcing its will on reality as power levels dropped. Polaron beam and specially contained proton flows intermingled, surrounding the small Iconian sphere with artificial lighting before plasma fire ripped from within it, tearing itself apart in death throes.

The bridge crew burst into cheers, hearty for being blooded on the enemy without the catastrophic results of their earlier simulations. The ship was slightly singed on a few feathers, but had not blown itself up on a lucky weak spot. An'riel was silent, wondering about whose life would be filed as ended with a terse few sentences on her after-action report. He'd died for a ship that didn't even have a _name_.

"No other enemies show on short-range sensors," Satra reported after a moment, "No signs of gateways opening within passive sensor range. Subspace picked up a omni-direction pulse, one of the probes got off a contact report." An'riel nodded.

"Power reserves at eighty-seven percent and rebuilding. No catastrophic harmonics within shields. Weapon temperature levels within pre-established parameters. No on-board casualties," Tovan reported happily.

"Bridge," Veril came back over the repeater, "We have a problem. Tricorder results are not matching core's internal sensors for outer field variance controls. Aborting singularity startup."

"Power-saving mode! Drop shields," An'riel confirmed. The ship's background hum quietened as systems went into standby. "How far in did we get?" Startup wasn't a fast process, and so had begun before combat, which hadn't helped the power reserves.

"Matter stream was activated and beginning matter degeneration," Veril said, half sing-song. "Inner containment fields were showing green across the board. The flow control fields were showing a power flicker on the matter-stream on independent scan that wasn't showing on the main board. Subspace field generators were checking out, but I'm giving you impulse since we need to start venting plasma," An'riel nodded and the ship went into slow motion as Veril continued. "It'll take at least an hour to break down the generators for a diagnostic."

"Let us not rush in," An'riel said, thinking. This was serious, but they had just fought Iconians, who loved computer virii almost as much as she did. "Restore singularity control software from backups and prepare restart first. Are we mission-killed?"

There was a long pause from the line, "If we reverse the proton accelerator rings into the EPS taps I can maintain full impulse thrust while diverting plasma from the fusion reactors for another go, but it will be at least half-an-hour before we can try. I need to check the data _conduits_ too before I risk anything," Veril said reluctantly. "I don't think we'll need the yard if I need to rebuild the generator.

An'riel thought for a moment. Veril did not want to be the one the crew looked at if their first mission ended in failure, but if she thought she could repair it out here, she could. _A great captain is backed by a great crew_ , she reminded herself. And, to be honest, she did not want to end slinking back. Operationally, whole squadrons were now in motion, and she'd seen the casualty projections. Their ship and their life may not be worth it in the final cold exchange.

"All right," An'riel said, "We will continue on auxiliary power for now. Communications, prepare data package C for our first transmission." The Uhlan managing communications now. Several pre-planned, and dense, coded traffic sets had been prepared as part of the misinformation campaign. An'riel believed they contained nothing, though she had not been told for sure. Their structure was the real message, from an operational perspective. C indicated mission continued, but unsure of full success.

"Tovan," she ordered after a minute's further thought, "Have weapons shut down primary proton weapon and drop the encapsulation function from the polaron weapons. Not having to rebuild proton flow will help our fuel consumption," she said, more for the junior officers' benefit. It would cut their firepower by perhaps a third, but keeping the 'proton sabot' function offline would keep energy reserves from falling as dramatically as they had in a two-minute battle.

Tovan nodded and went to work, "Weapons report dropping the proton feeds for now. We're going to see some improvement of the polaron coherency, but not enough to offset." An'riel nodded. The protonic function delivered a heavy positive charged particle burst inside a polaron envelope. With a little luck, it would pass a solid hit through shields with heavy particles that deflectors could otherwise ward off. The experimental proton weapon wrapped its particle beam in a very complex set of fields to avoid being brushed away by navigational deflectors, and showed some promise, but the polaron beams offered a lesser effect in exchange for far easier construction.

"All right, the next two groups are in our space so we should be able to get a distress signal off if we have to," An'riel said, plunging forward. "Tovan, see if you can pull D'vex away from engineering to cut our cloak down if we do not have to mask our warp core signature. He worked on the _Valorous_ before its refit so he should be able to come up with something."

Tovan nodded and left the bridge at a run. "An'riel to Veril – we are going to circle here until you have things locked down," An'riel said, and moved over towards science. A shuttle pilot dead and the ship's heart still, and still no name.

Satra shifted slightly as An'riel started tapping on one of the holographic displays. "If our own warp engines remain off line, we can improve our passive range a little," she lectured, "Especially to avoid getting ambushed in the rear quarter. I think we have some time, so can you bring up the gravity well settings? We should be able to use less power if we take advantage of the atmosphere up here." The crew settled into work.

An hour later, things were looking better from at least the Admiralty level, with two more clusters removed. With the probes' masters assuming they were generally safe, their low power cloak had proven safe against passive scans. Knowing the general Iconian position, they'd been able to form a temporary gravimetric point, and hammer the resulting gathered cluster of enemies with torpedoes and cannon fire.

They'd picked up, faintly on sensors as they left the combat zones the flicker of ships moving in the distance of the Sphere, shuffling to a pattern unknown to the field. They puttered along under cloak at low-power towards their next target, this on the fringes of Voth space. An'riel had left the bridge a half-hour ago, feeling on alert status between threats she could do more as a spare tricorder in engineering.

That cavernous space really showed its hybrid nature, with the stilled rings of the singularity shielding surrounded by normal green consoles and lights, with the light of individual workstations or the gleam of Horta shuffling around. The ordinary singularity core was a platform suspended within a hollow purple sphere of Solanae alloys, with pop-out walkways as people moved between stations, and holographic workstations around the edges of the room to support power distribution and support systems.

Now, after ten minutes in, one of Veril's teams had found the point, the dark Reman and light Rihannsu looking on as their engineering chief and captain examined part of the field emitters through a molecular microscope.

"Excellent work catching this," An'riel commented, adjusting the scope slightly, "Definitely replicated material in the magnetic shielding here."

"On a brand new system, what sort of corners are they cutting?" Veril fumed. Replication was fine for non-detail work, but circuits only a few molecules apart were very prone to failure when replicated, thanks to the common single-bit errors spreading chaos through replicated materials.

"I do not think these came from the Solanae fabricators, this is not a Federation replicator pattern," An'riel commented on, "It might be Imperial, it has been a long time since I have _seen_ anything out of a replicator that did not originate in the Federation in our space." She moved to let Veril move in again, "So this would deform the field originating in the subspace emitter sections, correct?"

"Just barely," Veril said, "The magnetic flux caused micro power fluctuations in the gravitic shielding, and threw off the subspace components. We probably would have been fine until we tried a subspace jump, though I'd say fifty-fifty for any problems there. All the signals on either side looked fine. I still think we would have caught it, but we've restored the control software from backup. I'm having one of the labs run up some additional monitors, and the computer team is double-checking the archived code. The spares are checking out, we'll replace it and toss that."

"I think we need to keep that," An'riel said sharply, "We can backtrack on the installation logs, the core was supposed to be completely assembled for installation a few months ago. Someone knew these components better than we did to try this – we will need to forward this back to the shipyards to check the rest of the ships in this class."

Veril nodded, grimacing more than usual, and said, "There aren't that many _Caprimuls_. The core installation's a little different between the variants so it could be specific to them, and no one had bad luck through a jump yet." That they could be specially sabotaged went unsaid surrounded by crewmen.

"Keep the part and see if you can find the assembly logs for the core," An'riel said, "Dyson Command will want an investigation." An'riel checked a PADD, "We should be coming up on our next target area soon. How are power levels?"

"Hovering around eighty-three percent right now. Deuterium levels are down by about five percent. They really didn't build long legs into it, and she wasn't intended to be in battle conditions without main power," Veril said.

An'riel glanced over at said main reactor, where one of the Solanae style pillars on the edge of the singularity sphere was still spilling its guts, awaiting replacement. "How long will that take?"

"One more run-over to make sure the spares are actually properly made," Veril said, "And I still need the lab to finish with those monitors and get them installed. If we could stay still for a little while, it will help getting the matter stream heated up enough to start converting it to degenerate matter. It'll use a lot of power and run our fuel down a bit to get the singularity up," the Reman finished glumly.

"I have been thinking about that, but there may be a fuel bunker closer than back at the supply depot," An'riel said, "Thermal shielding systems are still running fine?"

"Yes…." Veril said cautiously, and then blinked. "Oh, you can't be thinking that."

"The major problem with ramscoops," An'riel said, quoting, "Is the low density of hydrogen in the stellar medium. And suns actually use very little of their overall mass of hydrogen."

"I'd have to check if we can expose the ramscoops," Veril said, "I guess it should work, in theory, but I don't think the filtration system was designed for hydrogen that energetic."

An'riel pointed at the core, "Could you bypass to that?" she asked, "The core wants energized matter, not hydrogen plasma specifically, so it could compress it down, and not having to tap the EPS for that would help the power cost of startup."

"That has to be crazy," Veril said, "I've never heard of anyone doing that before."

"We do sort of live in special circumstances," An'riel agreed, "But it would be a good shakedown of the power components, and it would save you a lot of time once the core is ready." She smiled, dangerously, "And we _do_ have all these shiny new toys, so we should see what its greatest advantages are."

"It's done pretty well so far," Veril said, and gave a couple beats. "What are we calling it again?"

The Rihannsu crewman still standing nearby nearly snickered but managed to control it as his boss, and her boss, gave him a look. He was spared any follow-up, when the ship's chimes intoned battle alert.

An'riel's wrist beeped, "Primary bridge crew to battle stations please," Tovan's voice came over, sounding worried. "We're picking up something additional in zone four, and Admiral, it looks Voth."

An'riel glanced at Veril, who nodded. "I'll be along in under a minute," the Reman nodded, "Just have to finish detailing the work crews."

An'riel broke off at a hurried walk as acknowledgement. Running through the ship, even at battle alert, just was not in the Rihannsu race's character for its leaders. Confidence must always be projected wherever possible, as An'riel had learned, and so she stately fast-walked to the turbolift.

End Part 3


	4. Crucible

What's in a Name?

By tremor3258

Part 4:

Crucible

Author's Note: And following on from the last part, when you're in the Sphere, you get Voth.

Arriving at the bridge, Tovan moved from the command station back over to weapons, as the command station's screens shimmered over to An'riel's preferences at her approach. That was still taking some getting used to.

"Report," she said aloud as the chair formed at her presence as she sat down, and began taking in the tactical report.

"We are under cloak, no penetration attempts detected. Thirty kilometers away from target zone. Uncloaked contact detected on perimeter of zone, low power signature. Sensors checked the thermal bloom decay – the probes have recently moved."

"Gamma ray flashes?" An'riel asked, rotating the tactical display.

"Nothing showing above background," Satra answered, "If there was any violence, it's been over for a little while. I am seeing light backscatter off debris drifting down towards the Sphere, but unable to determine mass."

"Ready a stealth atmospheric probe, no transmitter, configure it to go active after fifteen kilometers and we will catch the pulse's reflection," An'riel stated, unsurprised when she had been anticipated enough that it was ready in under a minute. The ship barely shifted as the projectile was launched, returning a ghostly layout of surrounding space as it burnt its sensors out.

"That's a _Palisade_ ," Tovan said, checking the silhouette against warbook. "At least three Iconians surrounding it. Doesn't look anyone tried a weapons lock on the probe."

"Possibly a tractor beam field or the Palisade has enough motive power to maintain position," Satra said, "But some sort of artificial graviton reaction, certainly. Does not look like from refraction that the warp is up."

"Let us see how the Voth will respond to kindness," An'riel said. "Maintain cloak, charge weapons and ready shields."

The ship proceeded forward, crew moving quietly, reinforcing the code of silence of cloak. Approaching combat range helped resolve the situation visually. Three of the near-featureless Iconian probe spheres were darting around a Voth frigate, leaking plasma from a nacelle as fires licked within residential sections.

"Life signs?" An'riel asked as the ship slid to a stop.

"At least half the crew from what I can read," Satra answered grimly.

"Then let us hope this is a trap for the Voth and not ourselves," An'riel said, "Full priority to tactical systems on computer, prepare to decloak and begin tactical sensor scans of the probes."

The bridge crew went to work. There was a shimmer, more felt than seen, as the cloak disengage, and the crack of polaron discharges echoed through the hull. The screen showed violet bolts racing from below the viewpoint towards each of the spheres in turn, which flared with Cherenkov radiation as deflector shields struggled to abate the tide of energy. The probes, in spite of advanced technology, weren't big enough to load much of it, and the first exploded under the strain.

With power low, however, their own shields' dispersion ability was lower than normal, and their own forward shield's capacity was beginning to overload, despite distributing energy from the other emitters. An'riel however, preferred to cheat as they targeted the second ship. "Battery power to weapon capacitors – transfer EPS load to deflector and secondary. Engage tachyon beam."

The probe's shields rippled as the FTL particles tore at the subspace lattices underlying the shields' integrity. The secondary deflector set up a harmonic, reinforcing their shields, effectively, at the expense of the enemy's, buying some time. "Ready torpedo with high-density warhead, bring ship three-zero degrees to port, target shields," An'riel ordered. A brief flare of red light lit the screen as a photon torpedo casing, trading engine for additional firepower, started crawling to the enemy, before the ship skewed, polaron beam array using their vast sensor array to best advantage, disrupting enemy shielding.

The Cherenkov radiation on the second probe flared and died as the facing shield collapsed, followed shortly by the heavy torpedo ripping into the enemy, causing a flare of light as it triggered a graviton pulse that ripped at the probe with tidal effects. It crumpled, then exploded outward in a haze of radiation.

"Power back to weapons, finish the last one, and bring us in," An'riel ordered. With one probe left against a destroyer, even in their crippled state, it was no contest, exploding shortly as well under a barrage of fire. The destroyer, shields in electronic tatters, drifted to the Voth frigate.

At closer perusal, they could see a vast hole carved into the flank. "I am very impressed it is intact," Hiven commented, running close-in scans. "Plenty of life-signs. Looks like emergency force fields in some sections, main power is offline."

"Hail them," An'riel said, but no response came from the frigate.

"Crew compliment of a _Palisade_?" she asked after a minute.

Satra replied, "500 when brought into our service."

An'riel tapped her leg, missing her armrests again. Far too many crew, even with losses, for her to try and secure on board, since they had to assume the Voth were hostile.

"Rig for towing," she said shortly, "We will try and drift it in the direction of the Voth sentry lines and they will have to handle it. We are not a prison ship, and we have one more pocket to handle. Send data packet acknowledgement to Dyson Command."

Acknowledgements followed and a tractor beam licked out to reach the stricken ship. Cautiously, the destroyer wheeled in the direction of Voth lines, fighting the inertia.

Several minutes passed tensely, in near silence. An'riel was half expecting a Voth dreadnought to decloak off their bow, but nothing so dramatic happened.

Finally, Satra reported, "Picking up a Voth _Bastion_ -class cruiser uncloaked moving in our direction. Weapons are armed and its shields are up."

"Hail them," An'riel replied instantly. "Drop tractor and back us off." The non-combat tractor dropped as they turned rapidly, snapping the frigate in the direction of the cruiser.

"I have them," Jalel reported, "Switching to center viewer." The hologram showed a typical looking Voth, scaly, with a swept back head crest.

"Attention, mammal vessel. You will release your captive ship immediately and stand down," the Voth intoned.

An'riel twitched a little. After everything, the Voth were still dismissive of most other species. She called upon her training to answer, "We are doing so now, Captain…." No response was forthcoming. "We encountered your race's ship as having been crippled by Iconian probes. We lack the facilities to provide proper treatment aboard. In the spirit of our governments facing a larger threat, we have returned the ship to your lines rather than intern it."

The Voth nodded, then looked sharply at something out of range. "Mammal treachery! You will not take our territory!" he hissed and closed the channel.

"What?" An'riel twisted in her seat to look at Satra who was also baffled. "Captain, I swear by my name we have not attacked that ship." The channel closed in response. "Helm, plot escape vector."

"Energy surge from the frigate!" Satra said suddenly. She brought it up on screen. The hole that they had noticed previously suddenly shimmered, and An'riel could hear Tovan curse as an Iconian probe decloaked from within the _Palisade_. An'riel frowned. This one looked a little larger, and suddenly it shimmered, sending forth a wave of energy that washed over the surrounding ships. An'riel could just see the _Palisade_ lose antimatter containment and explode before the bridge display broke apart into colors. It reformed after a moment, then went back to random colors as the lights flickered overhead.

"Damage control, electronic warfare attack through hull systems!" An'riel said into her own communicator as Veril, cursing, pulled a stand-alone computer unit. The probe had just burned its energy reserves to introduce a viral probe through quantum induction into their computer network. The active foreign programs were easier to handle than the worm version, but they were going to have spot failures all over the ship at the moment. None of the controls seemed non-responsive, but red lights flickered on status displays.

Veril pecked at her computer, and then with a smile, fairly stabbed the enter key. The lights steadied as she isolated the bridge. "Excellent work – full impulse power helm, away from the _Bastion_. There is no force in the Quadrant that could convince their captain this was not our idea right now," An'riel ordered.

The ship wallowed briefly, and began to turn, steadying as it went. An'riel switched her own display to still-spotty tactical. The _Bastion_ was drifting, randomly firing weapons from its rear arrays momentarily, but sensors showed the power flux in its systems was decreasing, and as she watched, its impulse engines kicked back in, but they were out of weapons range for the moment.

After a minute, Veril grinned again and tapped her screen, reestablishing the physical links to the ship and the ride smoothed out. Jalel reported, "Damage control teams report they have it identified the polymorphic virus base form, but it will be a few minutes to clear it out of secondary systems."

"Energy reserves?" An'riel asked.

"Ninety percent technically, but batteries are drained and shields are at thirty percent capacity," D'Vex reported, as Veril was still virus hunting. "Most of our accumulators are still drained – high-energy systems have limited functionality."

"Hiven, does the _Bastion_ still have a sensor lock on us, or is there any chance we could jam it?" An'riel asked. Even a weak sensor mask took a fair amount of energy. Cloaking at this range was worse than useless if they were being actively tracked without having the singularity's resources to divert sensor pulses.

"Yes sir," he reported, "He's pinging us so hard that the defense system is registering the pulses. He's not trying to close the gap yet, though."

An'riel pulled up the tactical display, and nodded. Their random course was cutting near Voth space, so all the _Bastion_ had to do was track them until something could cut them off and force them to slow down. They definitely weren't in shape to attack a cruiser currently.

"Continue present speed," An'riel said, thinking. "Veril, get back down to engineering. We may have to do the foolish thing we were considering." The Reman rolled her eyes but stood up. "Satra, bring up the current weather map for the brown dwarf. Helm, put us on a least-time parabolic to the last waypoint on our patrol. Tovan, keep an eye on the _Bastion_ , when it moves to pursue, send Data Package E on tightbeam." Another random noise, its pattern indicated under enemy attack. With luck, one of the ship's on the solar patrol would be available, or An'riel would need to do something she was pretty sure was possible, but was objectively foolish.

The ship, still out of weapons range of its pursuer, began a turn, lifting towards the light of the shrunken star at the heart of the Sphere. The _Bastion_ , after a brief hesitation, clawed for altitude to follow. An'riel walked over to the science station to check the 'weather' map when it became apparent the cruiser wasn't quite prepared to dash into weapons range. It was, An'riel reflected, probably confident it could crush them against the sun's photosphere.

After several minutes, An'riel sketched out several small course corrections on tactical, and then ran some numbers. "Helm, take my numbers and refine them. I want an orbit with perihelion in the corona, and we probably are going to have to dodge around some Voth patrols, but if you can get our approach vector just shy of too shallow at the coordinates I am sending, that would be excellent." The Uhlan, sweating slightly at the light of the star centered in his console's viewscreen, merely nodded.

Satra asked, "And what about the Iconian probes we're racing towards?" Her tone held no condemnation, merely questioning.

"I think if the Iconians are trying to sow dissension, they will be on our side for once," An'riel remarked. "But they probably won't have a chance to catch up since we will be at full speed."

An'riel checked – at maximum impulse possible in the thin atmosphere, they'd be hitting 'vacuum' caused by the solar wind in another few minutes now that they were going straight vertical, and it wouldn't be long to cover a mere AU after that. The second biggest difficulty was they weren't able to rebuild their shields. The largest, of course, was that they were diving towards a giant ball of fire.

On that thought, and to keep up the front of calm, she went back to her console and pulled up that name list she'd looked at briefly earlier. Perhaps the Elements did want her to go with _Phoenix_? The firebird myth was fairly common, and Romulus had had some hawks whose plumage had influence Rihannsu heraldry past the death of the planet, the vast yellow and red bird of prey that had haunted Earth Starfleet centuries ago.

More or less on a whim, she reran the random sort she'd chosen earlier, then her eyes narrowed when the same result topped the list. Somewhat disbelievingly, she started to pull up the definition when Veril reported in.

"Ramscoop filtration systems match other components thermal tolerances. We are rerouting into accelerator system now. Computer simulation passed, so D'Vex owes me a drink," Veril reported. "We hit some transient energy surges checking the field systems, but we haven't gotten all clear on the virus yet. Testing subsidiary systems, we need five minutes."

"Understood," An'riel said, "If you can get us any more out of the impulse engines meanwhile."

"No promises. Engineering out."

"Really?" An'riel asked the console, but it, as normal, stayed there waiting. "I am just curious, I am not dismissing it out of hand." No reaction still, but that was normal. Well, she was either crazy, right, Tal Shiar programming was messing with her, or she was having a religious experience. Fifty percent was better odds than she had sometimes.

"Bring up the pronunciation guide…. Huh, all right," An'riel muttered, then hit all hands.

"Attention all crew – my children, we stand at the final crucible of our shakedown cruise. I know some of you were worried after our round of testing, but installation is successful. We stand on the threshold of the heart of our vessel coming awake, and so I give it an ancient name of our allies, as a reminder once again that we must _never_ fall down the old paths of fear that tore our people apart."

She stood. "Standing before the Elements, air beneath us, Earth and Water surrounding us, and Fire before us – I dub you the Romulan Republic Warbird _Simurgh_. Fly well and true through the storms that beset us until our people can take our true place of honor in the galaxy!"

She sat, the bridge silent but for the small beeps and clicks of automated updates. Veril then came over the bridge PA, "Transient energy surges not present, singularity shielding checked out on recheck. Go for ramscoop-assisted core start."

"Understood," An'riel said calmly, bringing up the ship's status, and signing off on opening up some gaps in the forward shielding for the ramscoops Tovan and Veril had forwarded to her console. She checked the tactical display again. The particulate count was plummeting as the solar wind helped push the thin atmosphere towards the edges of the Sphere, and their speed was climbing as a result.

At current speeds, and the short distance to the damaged star at the Sphere's heart, they'd be in position in perhaps three minutes to shed speed into the sun's corona. Or die in a nimbus of fire if the _Simurgh_ didn't live up to its engineers claims, but An'riel had been on the _Dyson_ at the same sun, so she considered it unlikely. Also, she wouldn't have much _time_ to consider it if there turned out to be a problem.

However, in about a minute with their current plotting they'd pass through the last Iconian 'duck-blind'. She didn't want to shed speed right now – it'd be too difficult to get up to speed, but her next steps relied on two of the most ancient races of the galaxy and how foolish they would be.

The tactical board blinked briefly as an update came down. The _Bastion_ , with its power systems in better shape, was cranking more speed as the medium thinned. Or its captain was willing to risk damage before the _Simurgh_ reached the Alliance concentrations around the brown dwarf. Too many factors were still in play, and she had to cut down at least some.

"Communications – prep message to the Voth," An'riel said. "Give them the warning about the probes ahead and their probable locations based on what we have on passive detection."

Jalel started tapping, "Did you want to send tactical data, sir?"

"Negative," An'riel said almost immediately, "Let them work at it a little, maybe that will finally convince them of the virtues of cooperation."

"Understood," Jalel said after a few seconds. She could sympathize with his confusion, if not quite understand it. The Federation practically saw data-exchange as a _responsibility_. "No response yet, Admiral."

"Thirty seconds to Iconian monitoring zone," Satra reported. "We're picking up some odd frequency flickers from the area – look like harmonics on the dwarf's radiant frequencies. No ion trails or signs of movement, however."

"Old but good trick to do active sweeps against an energized body," Hiven said, not looking up for a last-second diagnostic check on the deflector, "If we didn't have the dwarf's weather system so plotted we'd dismiss it as sensor artifact."

"See if you can get it plotted to tactical," An'riel said, "The faster we have them locked in, the better. Tovan, at current speeds, how long do we have before the _Bastion_ is also in weapons range of the probe locations given their acceleration curve?"

Tovan responded, "Ten seconds, maybe – they could kick reserves if they needed. Admiral – given current energy levels, we don't have emergency evasive."

"All right – engineering," An'riel said, "Top off photonic capacitors now, and keep them there." She tapped her consoles to bring up control. A holographic ship was a relatively simple trick. One that could fight required a good eye for local space conditions. Tovan – open fire once we have range"

"Shielding as it is," Hiven said, "They'll probably be able to see that behind us."

"True, but the captain expects us to be aggressors anyway, so it will not change something as stubborn as a Voth," An'riel said. The other benefit, while capacitors weren't very efficient, they were less affected by subspace distortions or energy sumps compared to electro-plasma networks.

Targeting range was hit, and the _Simurgh_ vibrated slightly as its cannons gimbaled, spreading fire among targets. Bolts were cut short as they hit cloaking fields, as probes shimmered into visibility. Tovan pulled up a comm link with a raised eyebrow to An'riel's station as he wordlessly sent the results of the first round of fire. _Simurgh_ was showing a ten percent increase in effective damage, apparently through better sensor/cannon coordination and accuracy compared to her earlier strikes when not named. An'riel shrugged.

 _The Elements aren't always about direct faith_ , she typed back. It _could be the crews_.

 _Or,_ Tovan replied via text, _We have to remember to get the computer core something nice for naming in a year._

Metaphysics had to give away to physics as the _Bastion_ entered range. Space tore open before them and An'riel snapped out orders, feeling triumphant as a Tyken's Rift tore into lower levels of space, centered on the probes, whose shields began to flicker. _Simurgh_ 's engineering board reported effective power levels drop as local space grew less efficient, and the science destroyer struggled to slew around as RCS response grew fitful.

"Tovan?" An'riel asked, hand hovering over to execute the photonics.

Long association filled in the rest of the sentence to her exec, "Confirmed – showing multiple tracking locks and energy surge in enemy mass drivers, torpedo spread inbound!"

"Brace for transphasic impact!" An'riel ordered as the _Bastion_ spot repeated swarms of orange like, like angry hornets barreling towards its opponents. Voth technology meant they had more than a sting, trading off only a little warhead strength for shield penetration. The ship howled and lurched, status lights flickering to red as fire reached around and through _Simurgh's_ rear shields. The tactical display seemed to speed up as the ship was showed with inverted chronitons, effectively moving them to a slower reference frame than reality.

Lights flickered as the ship struggled to ground out overloads and radiations on the bridge. An'riel smiled as the bridge appeared to float around her. Apparently, with good enough gyroscopes, one didn't need armrests. She looked at the status screen and grimaced. The bridge had come through remarkably well, but that sort of red meant crew, her crew dying across decks.

"Hull integrity at sixty-seven percent," Jalel reported, "Breach and a plasma fire being contained on starboard upper pylon. Internal sensors report multiple casualties on decks seven and fifteen. Other casualty reports being collated. Radiation alarms behind frame ninety-three."

An'riel nodded but did not acknowledge as she slammed the execute button. Photonics were fairly self-sustaining after the initial power surge, so their still lowering energy levels weren't a problem, but being composed literally of light, they were very fragile, and transphasics would have cut them apart, but it'd be a little bit before the Voth could prep that many casings again.

 _Simurgh_ continued to slow as inertia carried it towards the Rift, but beginning to vector away. The ship lurched again as antiproton beams caught it from the side as the probes started to react. Meanwhile, multiple proud old _D'deridex's_ shimmering into being around them, plasma beams tearing into and apart the weakened probes, which started to explode rapidly from An'riel's time altered perspective.

An'riel cursed under her breath as the ship shuddered in the opposite direction, the _Bastion_ opening fire into them and the probes. The rapid-fire tactical changes started to slow as the chronitons dissipated, apparently improving the fortification of the last two probes as they started to take longer to die. The Rift, meanwhile, started to fade. Energy-hungry as it was, it couldn't last long before drinking its fill, and An'riel gave orders to bring them back around as the _Bastion_ closed in.

The last probes died and _Simurgh_ sailed only a kilometer or two from where the rift had been, shields spalling under Voth antiprotons. An'riel leaned forward. The rift wasn't changing to normal space with the sun's light behind it, it was brightening to a smoky blue.

"Full sensor analysis on the rift!" she ordered. "Get us some distance!"

"Confirmed gateway – multiple probes in bound," Satra reported. " _Bastion_ is maneuvering to get between us and the gateway and is opening fire on both."

"Helm, bring us to original vector and maximum remaining acceleration," An'riel said, "Continue active readings on gateway node. All power from weapons to engines, prepare ramscoops, and order gun crews to reconnect proton accelerator components. Began compiling damage report." _Simurgh_ slid around towards the sun as the Voth were distracted.

There was a lot of red on the board. Most of it was shield emitters overloaded or overheated, and those would cycle quickly once out from under combat. The hull had serious stress throughout its structure, but molecular welding and a little attention at a spacedock would handle that. Most of their sensor systems were on backup from the subspace stress or power overloads, and she could live with that from a first combat situation. They'd know how to handle the strain better next time.

If the ship survived, she'd consider it a successful shakedown, all in all. Things were starting to come together as the crew learned where and what they could push. When they hit dock, they'd know the ship as more than a series of components. And, even if this failed and they would plunge into the star, they had one last successful mission on their record.

Behind them, sensors picked spikes of radiation even against the glare of the star and the eldritch energies of the gateway as coherent antiprotons splashed against shields and hulls. Then, a flare of radiation spiked higher as the Voth deployed aceton fields, probe engine signatures dropping off their sensors. As they reached the ends of weapon range, a final flare of radiation went high into the subspace bands squealed against their sensors before the gateway collapsed.

The Bastion, scarred and glowing with radiation remained intact. Proof of Doctrine as it won a fight it didn't have to fight. Brief puffs of flame burst from its hulls as plasma fires ravenously consumed all available oxygen before bulkheads and force fields cut it off. An'riel read with a practiced eye reports of impulse EM fields flaring back to life as it cut back into motion.

"Estimate two minutes until corona has sufficient particle density," Tovan reported, "Voth cruiser closing. Will be in weapons range in fifteen seconds. On the brighter side, weapon crews report protonic feed online, if we had any protons."

"Signal from Voth cruiser, sir," Jalel reported.

"Let them talk," An'riel said, "Maybe they finally wish to end this. Begin reconfiguring shields to metaphasic mode."

The hologram split, showing the same scaly Voth head in four different directions so the crew could see. "Attention mammal vessel," the captain intoned, while An'riel privately wrestled with putting a Horta on the feed. "Your attempts to utilize our ancestors' technology in the Sphere have been noted before, but your copies remain insufficient. We have noted your trajectory- it will not carry you into the photosphere, and my ship will follow you anywhere through the corona. Surrender and spare your crew further tragedy."

"Captain," An'riel replied, "While my ship is the fruit of analyzing the technology here, it is a hybrid, not a shallow copy. Rest assured the gateway was not our doing, and is the product of an ancient and terrifying race, one that desires dominion over the entire Milky Way. They are preparing to begin their purge, and I implore you to stand down. Our governments' conflict must be put aside for the duration. Our interest in the Sphere originated in allowing the stars to remain free for commerce and people across the galaxy, and so it remains."

"Mammal lies!" the captain said, almost nervously, An'riel noted. "The Voth are the first race of the Galaxy! Your attempts to confuse the issue to incite the Voth to fall away from the Doctrine will not succeed! If you persist in these fallacies, you and your peoples will be brought down, and the power of this Sphere will return to the Voth!"

 _One minute left_ , Tovan nodded. An'riel felt a brief tingle on her skin as the shields reconfigured, a bit of added pressure as they shifted to _resist_ from _deflect_.

"Captain, please," An'riel said, "The Romulan Republic are a constructed people of short history. We take no issue with your people's lengthy existence, but our history will not permit us to allow subspace weapons to be used by _any_ people."

"You are not allowed to dictate to the Voth, or our Doctrine! Prepare yourself Captain!" The Voth said.

An'riel sat back slightly and shrugged. "Captain, I tried – and I pray your escape pods can survive the corona. Catch us if you can." She cut the connection and changed the visual focus to her crew. "Initiate ramscoop charging of proton accumulators and core injector preheating. We will make the sun itself the _Simurgh's_ wings. Begin preplotted trajectory change."

The ship began to howl as magnetic vortices reached out of the hull. Hydrogen ions, protons, propelled by the relatively weak fusion reaction at the heart of the dwarf were guided and swallowed. Metaphasic shielding flared, light and heat splashing off the lower hull and vortices, as traces of plasma swept past the ramscoops and flowed past the _Simurgh_ , leaving a bright trail of fire.

Below decks, engineers watched consoles furiously as others made minute adjustments of equipment. The depths of the core were still dark, but the shielding rings had begun to turn, starting to compress space into the ultimate anomaly. Bright blue-white plumes were tapped, running backwards out of plasma conduits that usually provided energy. Veril and other Remans grimaced and put on goggles as the light grew brighter and brighter in the core, a brief star as density increased, before the light dropped suddenly, the light turning green, eldritch and dimmer, as the power collected finally punched a hole through reality. A quantum singularity.

The ship's bones shook and vibrated, the deep rumble of an active core as the shielding teased and stabilized the micro event horizon, the ultimate regulator for matter and anti-matter. The flow of light from the plasma conduits ceased as injectors went into operation, and power began to flow.

"We're up! Oh, I may have to apologize to that dock supervisor" Veril shouted, then tapped the link to the bridge. " _Simurgh_ is alive, sir! Singularity core is stable and running at twenty-five percent capacity and increasing. Proton accumulators now rebuilding off ramscoops, and energy reserves at eight percent and climbing. Shields at… ooh, seventeen percent. We've got enough energy to start rebuilding them."

On the bridge, telltales that had only awakened in simulation burned to life. Status monitors came alive as the warbird's heart began its subsonic beat. An'riel smiled, viciously. "Thank you Veril," she said, "Do not raise active power levels yet – is the core active enough for reversing the metaphasic program?"

"Yesssss," she said slowly, "What's going on up there?"

"Subcommander, there is such a thing as a repeater display," An'riel chided. "Please pass my congratulations on to your entire staff. One last effort for the moment." An'riel closed the channel and switched to her security officer.

"Jalel, one last message to the Voth, asking them to clear off," An'riel said. "Tovan, the dockyard said there should be a program using those Solanae core boosters to use the metaphasic mode to feed energy into the emitters. Activate as soon as you can."

The two tactical officers nodded and went to work. Their successful reports spoke over each other before ship suddenly thumped, fire from the Voth as an angry reply that became a shallow retort as the ship channeled that fury into its own shields.

"Redistribute energy to other emitter banks," An'riel said, "Tactical systems to top computer priority. Close ramscoops. Bring our nose up three degrees on thrusters, shallow us out, and prepare for extreme maneuvering."

The helmsman adjusted the controls and winced as the ship started to come out of its dive. They were handling the heat, and the antiproton fire for that matter, but _Simurgh_ was shedding speed, and without the ramscoops cutting a path, they suddenly were dealing with a reentry shock layer.

 _Simurgh_ , for lack of a better term, skipped. The increased pressure of the sea of fire below them formed a cushion which was no longer feeding the warbird, and instead of cutting through it, it now rejected them, sending the ship suddenly up at an angle away from the sun, shedding the last trails of fire behind it.

"Well done helm," An'riel said with dark satisfaction. "Bring our power to combat levels. Redline all RCS and dampener systems – emergency evasive, bring us around. Engage tactical mode. Weapons free, fire all guns as they bear. Prepare torpedo clusters" A round of affirmatives by a trio of species rang out.

From the Voth perspective, the enemy warbird seemed to leap and start to spin, heat shedding off its wings as its nacelles subtly lengthened. The cannons mounted in the empty cavities of the warbirds structure swung out. Polaron bolts reached out, lashing at shields and nibbling at power levels, a beam slicing into shielding before it swung out of range. The white glare of a proton beam, a laughable weapon except for exotic containment, lashed out, joined shortly by heavy polaron bursts and the destroyer's trademark proton cannons.

"Give them everything and see if they break," An'riel said, "Initiate EPS induction pull, tachyon beam. Full power to guns – rapid-fire." The chatter of fire intensified as the cannons went to minimum safety between rounds, temperatures climbing to the red line. The blue-white glare of protons was matched by the Cherenkov radiation of tachyons spilling into normal space, and the traces of light as _Simurgh_ induced the enemy electro-plasma system to send energy their way.

The cannons grew brighter as the Voth shields flickered and the ship slowed. Antiproton beams and a transphasic torpedo lashed out defiantly, slamming into them and sending another bank of telltales into the amber. "Fire torpedoes," An'riel said with quiet disgust. D'Tan wanted it, and their future needed it, but diplomacy hadn't won the day. Not the best omen for _Simurgh's_ future in the war, she felt.

The ship vibrated slightly as mounted mass drivers barked, the cluster of doped photons racing out. They surrounded the enemy ship and following instructions, detonated, catching it and surrounding it in matched fires. A bit of physics trickery caused two of them to collapse into brief gravimetric pulses, causing tidal stresses and shearing along with explosive force. Caught with weakened shields and previous damage, the Voth ship staggered, and began to crush and shred… and die.

Finally, containment was lost and it exploded with all the force of a warp breach. An'riel watched silently until its final death throes vanished against the furnace behind it. She sighed, and let the mask fall back into place.

"Set course for Delta Command," she said finally. "Send signal ahead – report successful shakedown cruise. Get clearance for Earth Spacedock and arrange a full logistic readiness report for repair and resupply."

She stood, and looked around, and felt the mask slip into a genuine smile at her crew, who had gotten her through so much and done it again today. "And reserve a room at Club 47 – the first round will be on me. We have a ship and a victory to toast!" There were short, but determined nods from the crew and An'riel sat down.

And finally she pulled up the name definition. Good for a ship of this type, she decided, and hoped the ship _had_ picked it. If only, as a name, it too was committed to what was surely the long road of the war ahead.

End Part 4:

Author's note: And that's this one down. Please leave comments if you enjoyed. Or if you despised it. Those should be interesting.


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